Commitments, such as contracts and agreements, are fundamental components of many social and economic interactions, ranging from personal, to institutional, to political or religious ones, in order to ensure a mutually beneficial outcome for parties involved [1]}, [2]}, [3]}, [4]}, [5]}, [6]}, [7]}. They can be in the form of formal (legal) contracts as well as informal social norms and non-binding promises [8]}, [2]}. Arranging a prior commitment from all parties involved before an interaction improves the chance that people can reach mutual cooperation when individual interests are in conflict [10]}, [11]}, [12]}.
In most modern societies, institutions are created to enforce formal contracts and enhance cooperation, through suitable incentive structures such as punishment for wrongdoing [13]}, [14]}, [2]}.
People joining a religion share certain norms and expectations and might expect certain reward and punishment for a given behaviour [16]}, [1]}.
Commitments even found their applications in the context of computerised multi-agent systems, where they are formalised and engineered to ensure agents' norm compliance and positive behaviour [18]}.
